The Bearcats acknowledged after Saturday's win that they enjoyed seeing their head coach get fired up. / The Enquirer/Joseph Fuqua II

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For about 10 seconds Saturday, Mick Cronin lost his mind. A foul he wanted called was not called. An obvious wrong was not going to be righted. This is how he saw it. This wouldn’t do.

UC’s basketball coach sprinted from one end of his bench to the other. He tried to stop, because if he didn’t he was going to run into the back wall like Dale Jr. on Turn 3 at Daytona.

Cronin slipped. He fell down. He got up, tore off his sport coat, threw it somewhere behind him and collected a technical foul.

This is a workplace privilege unique to sports coaches and managers. Imagine your boss denying you a coffee break or a parking spot. You leap from your cubicle in protest, winging your pencil case, pocket protector and lunch box. An errant ballpoint accidentally whangs Phyllis in Accounts Receivable.

You hurl that baloney and cheese on rye halfway to the conference room, while simultaneously swearing like an original Snoop rhyme.

What if you did that?

Someone would shoot you full of horse tranquilizer.

Nobody Tased Cronin, or smacked him with a baton, or called a doctor to take him to a happy place. What he got instead was a 16-3 second-half run from his lately beleaguered basketball team, on its way to a nearly mandatory win over Connecticut. It was either beat UConn, or face the withering numbers-judgment of Joe Lunardi.

“I should have gone to law school’’ was Cronin’s assessment of his show.

Media heathens wanted to attribute UC’s 61-56 win to the inspirational madness Cronin supplied his troops. Cronin wasn’t entirely buying. He was just glad his players made a few shots.

“I’m just thankful I didn’t blow my knee out,’’ he said “I got a bad, bad wheel. I’m just biding my time until knee replacement.’’ Right. If the Bearcats could shoot, say, 45 percent between now and whenever their season ends, Cronin would behave every night like King Kong atop the Empire State Building.

As it was, his players suggested their coach’s behavioral issue was a factor.

“You see your coach get fired up like that, he’s playing for you,’’ Cashmere Wright decided. “He’s on your team.’’

Or, as Sean Kilpatrick put it, “A lot of things aren’t going our way with the referees. He sees his team battling, and we’re not getting rewarded on any end. I think he deserved to get that technical. He needed it.’’

Well, they all needed something.

At halftime, UC trailed 29-24. The Bearcats had more missed layups (five) than assists (four). We felt as if we were watching Groundhog Day, Pop-a-Shot version. UC did some good things in the half. It attacked the basket. It pressed some. What the Bearcats didn’t do was make many shots.

Their best player at attacking the rim is also their worst free throw shooter. JaQuon Parker went 1-for-9 from the line Saturday. If you’re looking for a metaphor for UC’s offense. . .

Desperation is a good motivator. The Bearcats might not have been entirely desperate, but they were halfway down that road and looking for a ride back. If they couldn’t get this one – at home, against a team without its best player and Bearcats-killer Shabazz Napier – the rest of the year could be a formality ending at the NIT.

They went on that 16-3 tear, withstood a Huskies counterattack, then clinched the game at the free throw line. Kilpatrick and Wright went 4-for-4 in the last 13 seconds.

Kilpatrick has been to UC’s offense what Atlas was to the world. “I walked in the locker room and I just started staring at the ceiling,’’ he said. “We needed this one. It’s good to get that little monkey off (our) back.’’

As for Cronin’s slip, flop and T, Wright wondered, “You got a picture of that?’’

Kilpatrick said of his coach, “He’ll be upset when we send that to his phone tonight.’’

Eh, probably not. His team got a win. All he got was T’d up. Cronin will take that trade.

UC plays at Louisville Monday night. Maybe he can hook slide into Rick Pitino or something. That’d really get his guys going.